Tournament DOU Tournament Format Discussion

[Arcticblast]

This thread is for general DOU tournament discussion and feedback. Instead of having an end of the year circuit feedback thread, this post will serve as the thread for tournament & circuit feedback year round. This thread also covers any tournaments in the forum that are not included in the official circuit, such as Doubles Premier League and the Doubles UU circuit.

Thread-specific rules:
- No game discussion. This thread isn't for talking about Pokemon, this is for talking about how we will play Pokemon. (God, what a sentence...) We have a lot of threads for talking about the game itself.
- No personal financial discussion. If you want to fund a money tour, please discuss this in private with the forum mods.
- This isn't the place to ask about hosting your own tournaments. Any requests to host tournaments, be they major or minitours, should also be done in DMs.
- Official Smogon Doubles Tournament is outside of our jurisdiction. If you really want to make an argument about OSDT, please use the Tournament Policy subforum. This also applies to other team tournaments like SCL and
- More than ever, please stay on topic. Policy discussion is really difficult to follow when there's more than one conversation going on at a time; if there are recent posts about one tournament, please refrain from bringing up a different tournament. (If you're ever in doubt about this, ask a mod.)
Beyond all this, remember that general Smogon rules still apply. Be nice to each other!

So what can you do in this thread?
- Discuss the Doubles Circuit as a whole. This includes but is not limited to:
--- Proposing additions to the circuit
--- Proposing removals from the circuit
--- Discussing Circuit Point payouts
- Propose timing changes for major tournaments
- Discuss the inclusion and significance of past generations in our major tournaments and in their own tournaments
- Discuss the frequency and planning of minitours
...and pretty much any other tournament topics you can think of. There's some stuff that's not explicitly covered here, such as doubles OMs like Partners in Crime, but that doesn't mean we don't want to hear about it. If it's not against the rules and it's important to tournaments, please talk about it!

Helpful links:
2023 Doubles Circuit

 

[Arcticblast]

Oldgen tournaments were brought up in the NP thread recently; I'm posting them here as quotes to keep them in the right place.

There's an unfortunate truth to "last bw" memes; the playerbase for old generations diminishes every year. While we've had annual discussions about BW DOU's viability as a DPL format, DPL 9's expansion to 8 teams feels like a definite breaking point. Excluding managers BW DOU has seen only 45 signups so far, of which the supermajority doesn't even really want to play it. We are currently at serious risk of having to exclude it from DPL next year, with XY eventually suffering the same fate. We shouldn't let these old generations deprecate, especially not while they're still represented in our official circuit.

This year the council has prioritized older generations by introducing Homefield: a bo3 single elimination format wherein the second and third games are played according to the loser's old generation of choice. This is an exciting tournament prospect but I fear we won't see that many BW & XY games: experienced players are less likely to lose the first match (and won't play their 'homefield') while newer players will favor comfort and pick newer old gens, rather than the ones they haven't been exposed to.

Currently the only open dedicated old gens tournament is Classic: other tournaments are either conditional — Homefield, Premier Leagues — or non-existent. Classic cups' single elimination format means new players risk being frozen out of the generation all year long if they lose in round 1. With so few opportunities to participate, new players are discouraged from learning old formats at all -- leading to a slow but certain death for these tiers.

My suggestions is that we should host old generation tournaments throughout the year. We don't need an official Circuit for that (yet); we just need to formalize a structured tournament schedule to gauge player interest and retention. More tournaments would encourage new players' participation, keep veterans in practice, and positively affect metagame development. And if experienced players reused teams it'd still be opportunities for rookies to learn the tier against its top players. The tiers involved would be SS, SM, XY, BW & ADV. Especially ADV has generated a lot of interest recently; subsequent tournaments could capitalize on that hype and legitimize it as a Doubles metagame. I also find it pertinent to keep SS & SM alive, who still boast healthy playerbases that don't deserve to be alienated.

The primary concerns seem to be credible interest and tournament/schedule congestions. As for the former there is no way of seriously gauging interest without trialing these tournaments. If activity is too low to justify continuation, then we can simply stop, and we'll be back where we currently are.
As for schedule congestion: tournaments could simply be 4-5 weeks of Swiss/round robin. These low stakes & low commitment tourneys being in older gens makes overlap with other current generation tournaments less significant. It could even be an opportunity to test Nails' 'Wednesday deadline' proposal, allowing players to stagger matches as opposed to scheduling everything on the weekend.

I would like to hear if council and DOU's playerbase are interested in these proposals. If there's enough enthusiasm for more tournaments I wouldn't even mind hosting one after DPL/Classic myself. As for now I think this could improve the state of these older metagames, rather than risking they bleed out slowly.

(people have argued in favor of DUbers' inclusion for DPL next year. while I'm not immediately opposed to this, I think it needs some form of structured representation before it can be a serious consideration. in this regard, we might want to look into a bigger lower tier circuit. i think that'd help Doubles grow & capitalize on new gen hype)

I love the idea of new players being able to learn old gens through low stakes tournaments; individual swiss makes perfect sense but another Maushold-style team minitour would be amazing as well for a better teambuilding experience.

As for DUbers, I think it'll be in a good position once Home drops. Not a lot of Pokemon are going to be added, so that gives time for people to learn the tier by the time the first DLC drops. By this time next year the number of box legend-bst mons should be about as large as in SS Dubers, making it a well-developed choice for next year's DPL. Integrating it into the existing DUU circuit or expanding it to cover DLC as well would probably increase tour clutter quite a bit, but would help immensely with representation and learning opportunities.

 

[ryo yamada2001]

Summarizing and responding to my NP thread post: As a new DPL host I was concerned about dwindling oldgens signups, but that might've been a bit apocalyptic: even while expanding to 8 slots, the oldgens have proven competitive playing fields rife with capable, DPL-worthy players. However, to preserve and grow those oldgens, players need more opportunities to experience them in a competitive setting than they currently do.

I have informally suggested to setting up a basic schedule for oldgen tournaments, so that we can immediately gauge player interest, retention and, if successful, set up a more formalized oldgens circuit or integrate it into our current circuit. With how many tournaments there are I find a lot of oldgens and other metagames are 'out of sight, out of mind'; concretizing an oldgens tournament schedule would give players something to look forward to. I hope we could start around Classic Playoffs (as to avoid confusion w.r.t. qualifying during Classic).

Because we're a few months out from that — and currently in the busiest oldgens period of the year — we've started organizing and stimulating DPP DOU, as it was the only DOU oldgen without resources or a playerbase to date. Even though it's just been 3 weeks, I think so far we've been successful in setting up resources (like tiering policy, sample teams, usage stats, player viability rankings) and involving players through scheduled live tournaments & impromptu roomtours. DPP DOU has drawn a mixture of newer players and established community members: I think this indicates that, if given the opportunities, newer players can integrate themselves in non-CG tiers whereas older players might enjoy a change of pace.

We could eventually apply our DPP DOU strategy to include other oldgens. There's a palpable interest in the spontaneity and immediacy of live tournaments — DPP roomtours are successful enough they warranted a pingable role for DOUcord — as opposed to scheduling week in week out. As we shouldn't host oldgens forum tournaments right now: I suggest gauging interest by hosting scheduled oldgens roomtours. We've hosted two successful double elimination tournaments for DPP so far (with a third coming up); this might work for ADV, BW, XY, etc. too. This would grant the tiers consistent, weekly representation: in sight and in mind. Even if these draw only a handful of new players, it could still prove significant for future DPLs, Classic preparation, and involving more people in general.

If this proves successful I suggest adding a ping akin to the DPP Roomtours for 'Scheduled Roomtours'. Several players have more than once indicated they've missed room tournaments because they were tabbed out for a minute. This might be a bit too far in the future for now, though.

Those are answers for the immediate, but I'd like to look forward and set up for potential oldgens tournaments a few months from now. I believe our main goals with them should be exposure, representation, and retention. For these reasons the Swiss format would be perfect: we'd expose players to the tier and retain their attention for several weeks while maintaining competitive integrity. These could be 4 to 5 week long non-elimination tournaments, so eliminated contenders would keep playing opportunities. I'm not sure whether we should have a top cut or just continue the tournament until our last x-0; I would like to discuss this with interested players.

As such, around Classic playoffs, I would like to host a 4-5 week Swiss DPP DOU tournament so we can legitimize the tier with its first formal forum tournament. Then ADV deserves another tournament as they are not represented within Classic yet. Subsequent tournaments are up to future discretion, but I think Classic Cup order (BW -> XY -> SM -> SS) makes most sense, as not to neglect or stack too much of one tier.

While I prioritize (and enjoy) the preservation and stimulation of older metagames foremost, we could (and likely should) apply a similar strategy to Doubles' other metagames. We can see the benefits of DUU's established circuit already, with numerous new players (big pichu, Frixel, Hys, bage1, AIRedzone) commanding DPL starting positions, thereby integrating themselves and becoming more established community members. If the DUU circuit were to expand and absorb other metagames e.g. DLC, post-home Ubers, Partners in Crime, and more, we could grow our playerbase even more.

Something has to give in this case; we're already facing a congested tournament schedule and adding a dozen more could risk communal fragmentation. I hate to say it, but I think we should look into cutting one Seasonal, as they currently occupy 28 weeks of our schedule and no longer present the hype and prestige of yesteryear. We've come to known them as long, exhausting grinds that are quick to burn out top players without being too accessible towards newer players. I believe one double elimination format + OSDT are sufficient, and that a smaller and/or faster tournament such as DLT2, one including live tours, or a different newbie-friendly format would alleviate some of that strain.

 

[kaori]

Expanding on the above and some Discord discussion lately, I'd like to propose adding another team tour to our circuit and cutting the second seasonal like May talks about above. I think we could use a more serious venue for our assorted lesser-played tiers and team tours are what get the more established players to actually play. It's just how the Smogon Culture(tm) is nowadays and we would be better off to adjust to it than stick to what isn't working nearly as well. That being said, here's the general structure I propose, but the details are very flexible and I'd appreciate community thoughts on what would make this most successful.

Name: Doubles Champions League? Grand Prix? Summer League? Could be any number of things.

Teams: My personal preference here is 6 teams no matter what, for 6 or 8 slots I'll expand on that below. Franchises should be separate from DPL.

Tiers: We have a lot of options here. DUU, DPP, and ADV are musts to me given existing community interest and lower representation in the circuit. DUbers is a strong candidate as well, and we should have 1-2 SV DOU slots as well. Z Strats mentioned it on Discord that it does help to drive signups and also gives the tour a bit more of the Official(tm) feel to it as well. I think we cap at 2 though. If we want 6x6, I think DUbers DUU DPP ADV are the 4 best to go with 2 SV DOU. If we expand to 6x8, this gives us the opportunity to add DLC and either a 3rd DOU slot or maybe something a little more out there like Partners in Crime or something. We have a lot of flexibility here so community feedback would be key.

How do we differentiate this tour from DPL? The answer to this one may very well be to just not outside of the tiers played. Its the most popular team tour format for a reason. If we want to deviate a bit, the idea of adding retains to a team tour to try and foster stronger team identity over the years like SPL has could be something to test pilot here. We could just use the same rules SPL has on retains.

Manager prices? Just set them at 15k for a base for the 1st edition imo, can follow same format as DPL afterwards.

Timing? As this tour would replace the Fall Seasonal in my proposition, that timeslot would be best to me. Start it near the tail end of OSDT. This would overlap with SCL, but that's usually 14 players max and I think many would still participate. We could look at alternative timeslots as well, but I can't imagine any SCL player that would sign up for Seasonal wouldn't sign up for this too.

 

[AIRedzone]

While I wholeheartedly prefer a team tour to a standard double elim seasonal, the seasonal signups typically mean that way more people (including those who've never played before) have the ability to play, while team tours uniformly shut out new players (or even players that have been around for a while) in favor of those with community presence. I don't know how this can be solved except maybe in a Maushold cup-style format where people can sign up as a team or be placed in teams, but this seems to be impractical for the size of tour proportional to a seasonal or 6x8 teamtour.

Basically, tldr team tours shut out newer players; how do we include them to broaden accessibility if replacing seasonals?

 

[Teals]

In response to the concern of limiting newcomer accessibility, I'd argue that there are plenty of individual tours as is. Classic, seasonal, dlt, and osdt. However all of those make up the first part of the year and if someone takes interest towards the backend of a year, they could have to wait a considerable time before getting a shot at serious competition. The solution that I propose is merely rework the schedule for these tournaments and try to interchange between individual and team tours.

 

[big pichu]

I would absolutely love another team tour. I feel like it would be a ton of fun to play a lot of these formats that are under explored and the sense of comradery is super nice. The sense of community was def kinda huge for me (as a newer player). I do think that it would be nice to have a side thing alongside the tourney that includes new people in some way though -- there's probably something fun that could involve them even if they aren't on a team, like side tourneys with undrafted players, etc.

Smudge came up with Doubles Derby and it's a really good name that I like a lot, it's really good!
I also really like Grand Prix


I also have a list of names that I would like to put forward:

doubles olympiad
doubles confrontational
doubles ultimate league
doubles master league
red bull ultimate doubles cup
the Douper Bowl
Tour de Doubles
Doubles Festival
Doubles Internationale
Doubles Superstars
Doubles in Doubles
Doubles Iditarod

I have more names if needed and heavily support another team tourney.

 

[zee]

Wanna throw a quick post up about the direction of tournaments in doubles and would prefer to get the ball rolling on some discussion now as opposed to whenever the circuit planning thread drops at the end of the year.

I think overall the doubles circuit is in a great place this year - the last time I competed in the circuit 2 years ago there was an additional seasonal and homefield was replaced with the majors format which I despised because I think bo1 has no place in individuals. Two tours with oldgen rep is especially awesome. I do wish OSDT was weighted more heavily - if you take a look at other lower tier circuits, their opens in Grand Slam, which are close to an equivalent of OSDT in terms of importance, will typically pay out enough points so that their finalists can automatically skate to circuit playoffs. I would really appreciate OSDT being weighed at about 1.67x what a seasonal pays out as opposed to 1.25x, such that first is making 25 points, second is making 21, and so on.

I do think that there is potential for the circuit to do either without a second seasonal or replace the second seasonal with something lighter in commitment such as a single elim lcq (swapping the order such that homefield -> lcq is the sequence). Even just that little bit of a break could go a long way with burnout issues.

Now that DOU is in a spot where we have an additional tournament as well as tournament slots all across various PLs on the site, there's just a Lot of pokemon to play, and that can be pretty exhausting when they're all tournaments with a decent amount of stakes. I've really liked playing a tournament like doubles derby where it's just to play some fun tiers and fight for glory, and would appreciate more tournaments like those and less of a focus on an invitational or playoff.

For one reason or another, PS ladders and live tournaments do not work for everyone, timezones, school/work schedules, or just Not Being On Pokemon Showdown All Day Long, etc. Smogon is a great place for facilitating matches in all kinds of metagames, and I hope that in the future we in DOU capitalize on the element more.

tl;dr i think we should
-value osdt more in circuit points
-try to thin out the circuit just a little more to prevent burnout. tours like classic and osdt are fun and important but really demanding!
-more 0 stakes tours on the forums because i just wanna bring baton pass in adv and cba to be on PS between 2:00 to 2:05 every Thursday to join the scheduled ADV roomtour

 

[ryo yamada2001]

zee already posted about increasing OSDT payouts for various reasons e.g. it being a significantly higher investment, involvement, prestige etc. tournament relative to other circuit tournaments, as it draws every DOU main and top tier singles players alike, awards a trophy, shapes SCL draft plans etc. it's really a quite pitiful payout for those who top cut, with major OSDT finishes counted only marginally better than decent seasonals finishes, resulting in very confusing and imo inaccurate invitationals seeding, thereby depriving top performers of chances at the ribbon

once again zee already posted abt this w/ actual numbers but i suppose to strengthen the argument here's a suggested payout scale:

with bigger jumps between notable points you reward good finishes and osdt investment more, without inflating the payouts to the point only osdt'd matter

ideally the payout gets retroactively changed as soon as possible to create more serious invitationals seeding for this year also

 

[Feyy]

I agree with zee and May; I think OSDT payouts should be higher than what it is currently. Though, I disagree that payouts change should take effect immediately. OSDT payouts has already been changed once which left a handful of players pretty unhappy. Having payouts be changed a second time, especially post tours when all the results are in, doesn't sit right with me.

I did want to touch on the reason why OSDT payouts was changed in the first place, which was due to a lower number of signups that led to 1 less round of Swiss. I agree with the reason for lowering payouts but lowering it mid tour feel unfair to players going into the tour expecting a certain payout for reaching top cut but then ended up receiving less than promised. To more correctly reward players for placing in tournaments according to the number of signups and avoid changing payouts mid tour, I propose for next year circuit, tournament payouts should have tables that list how the payouts changes in respect the number of signups similar to what the draft circuit this year with their spreadsheet.

Here's an example from the draft circuit spreadsheet

and here's what I think a version for OSDT could potentially look like (I made the numbers up)

 

[zee]

Tiebreaks in team tours are unnecessary and harm most of the competition. I highly encourage team tour playoffs in 2024 to either follow an n+1 or n-1 (personal preference for the latter but am open to either) count for playoff slots. Tiebreakers halt the momentum of the tour for 3 games to play out, which causes players not involved to burn out, the spectators to lose interest in following the games, and the tour itself to overstay its welcome.

If you want to talk about hype, I would argue that every matchup being posted in playoffs being potentially a team's final set of games is exciting enough. As for losing teams who would be salty about the loss of a potential comeback, unironically just a skill issue if you can't keep the series competitive to start.

 

[Smudge]

Next year, if the Old Gens circuit is expanded into its own thing, I would like to see a Doubles equivalent of the Smogon Masters as the flagship tournament of that circuit, similar to how OSDT is for the current gen circuit.

I'm not sure where OSDT is going to be placed on the calendar if it's going to be moved at all, but I would suggest placing this roughly opposite to it. I think very early in the year would be a great place for it, but planning may be difficult. Perhaps it could replace homefield entirely, which I think was kind of a flop hype/interest wise.

edit: Also if the oldgens circuit is expanded to a separate thing it would be cool if it could have a ribbon for the winner like CG does.

 

[ryo yamada2001]

this year doubles was represented in 48 different tournaments. in comparison, that was 35 last year, 23 in 2021, 15 in 2020 etc.
so far, there have been ~3000 sets played accounting for ~5800 total games, compared to ~2700 sets and ~5600 games last year, ~1700 sets and ~3400 in 2021, etc.

the amount of doubles tournaments and games have ballooned to account for the creation of many new tiers (adv, dpp, natdex) and the further formalization of doulc & underrepresented old generations (through the likes of derby, friendlies, oldgens invitationals etc.). it's not a bad thing to have this many tournaments, but we must consider the workload this puts on players who want to engage w/ all different parts of the tier and remain competitive in the doubles circuit. next year we see even more tournaments slated, with potentially a new formal oldgens circuit, a formalized minitour circuit, more lobbying in premier leagues, etc.

doubles leadership has insisted on circuit activity, but the high saturation of tournaments may cause burnout and reduced activity and excitement for these actual tournaments. when's the last time you heard anybody be excited about seasonals or homefield? people play them because the low circuit payout structure makes it an obligation, but there's none of the excitement there was back in 2015-16, where there were fewer tournaments and thus excitement was more concentrated

i suggest cutting a tournament from the circuit structure and increasing points payouts.
a) we don't know a good tournament format for this. we've tried homefield which was a respectable attempt but unfortunately failed (and the need for oldgens representation has been fulfilled in a plethora of other ways (in a way that leadership could not anticipate ofc, so i'm not blaming anyone). we've also tried live tournaments before (flop, could also be replaced by scheduled roomtours), and majors whose bo1 structure is very polarizing
b) reduced payouts don't actually encourage people to join. homefield had a low amount of signups because it's not a tournament most want to play. increasing payouts actually makes it more rewarding for people to play circuit tours and some of dou on the side

and also expand invitationals slots, it is something eragon11145 and others have said before, but we have more than 16 good players who deserve to represented and it could turn invitationals into a more meaningful event rather than the afterthought it currently is.


all of these tournaments have been great for fortifying our current playerbase, but doubles remains very isolated as is, and we could stand to do more to branch out towards different communities and types of players. efforts like natdex dou, which were inexplicably not supported by doubles leadership, have drawn in a great deal of new players. but doubles remains isolated from that community, meaning we're not experiencing their potential intake. we could do way more to unify doubles' other tiers (natdex, dlc foremost) under one doubles banner.

doubles is also very isolated from the rest of smogon at large, and we could undertake more efforts to grow the tier that way. one of those means was the OSDT casts; an attempt at drumming up interest for a tournament that suffered a ~40% signups drop. and it worked! i heard about several players in other communities they appreciated the coverage. this has not resulted in more players so far, but it does keep doubles a little bit more relevant across the whole site. furthermore there could be more extensive efforts at integrating various communities (e.g. the chinese community, maybe more of the latam community, other european countries like spain and france coming up huge rn), vgc, other smogon communities etc. i would be willing to help figure out ways to stimulate community growth, as im sure would many others, but i havent really seen a concerted push from leadership so far, so idk if its on their minds. it would be nice to outline intentions to do so, though

 

[zoe]

Thoughts on how circuit should be structured w OSDT being pushed up significantly.


1. DPL should be pushed back until after OSDT at least

Having the two biggest DOU tournaments overlap is really really lame and there is no possible way it can be done cleanly. From December 10th to February 19th there's around 11 weeks, which is barely enough for the regular season and playoffs assuming we already have players, managers, and the draft worked out. Changing back to 6 teams would technically fix that but that just seems silly considering how well received 8x8 was last year, so it just makes more sense to push DPL back considering there's no real reason it has to be at the start of the year. Moving the teamtours around is honestly fine (as long as DWCoP doesn't switch with DPL considering it isn't even over yet...) so I don't see a reason why moving DPL would be a problem (waiting over a year isn't fun but I'd argue its the lesser of two evils here).

2. Drop a seasonal and rebrand the other

I think dropping a seasonal has been talked to death already so not gonna say anything about that, but if it does happen rebranding it due to the remaining tour not being a seasonal one is the play. Don't really have much else to say outside of that.

Might also make a post on tiebreaks closer to a teamtour but those are all I could really remember to post about at the moment

 

[Kenpwnchi]

Thoughts on how circuit should be structured w OSDT being pushed up significantly.


1. DPL should be pushed back until after OSDT at least

Having the two biggest DOU tournaments overlap is really really lame and there is no possible way it can be done cleanly. From December 10th to February 19th there's around 11 weeks, which is barely enough for the regular season and playoffs assuming we already have players, managers, and the draft worked out. Changing back to 6 teams would technically fix that but that just seems silly considering how well received 8x8 was last year, so it just makes more sense to push DPL back considering there's no real reason it has to be at the start of the year. Moving the teamtours around is honestly fine (as long as DWCoP doesn't switch with DPL considering it isn't even over yet...) so I don't see a reason why moving DPL would be a problem (waiting over a year isn't fun but I'd argue its the lesser of two evils here).

2. Drop a seasonal and rebrand the other

I think dropping a seasonal has been talked to death already so not gonna say anything about that, but if it does happen rebranding it due to the remaining tour not being a seasonal one is the play. Don't really have much else to say outside of that.

Might also make a post on tiebreaks closer to a teamtour but those are all I could really remember to post about at the moment

I think having, at max, ×2 Seasonals to make room for other BIGGER tournaments would be perfect.

 

[ryo yamada2001]

hi hi, a small formal proposal following up from a doucord conversation a while back:

a few months ago I suggested adding stars to team tour winning teams' logos akin to football, because it would strengthen team identity and continuity, celebrating the historical performances of our beloved franchises. there's more extensive reasoning here by Lets in The Sun who suggested the same thing for SCL, SPL & WCOP teams. though i don't think more extensive reasoning is really necessary; back when i suggested it on DOUcord it received universal approval, and i think it just slipped through the cracks since.

this would grant the following franchises star(s) to their logo:
1x moss deep space jams
1x six island shitposters
2x santalune storms
1x hungry hungry hippowdons
1x slateport city sp_ndas
1x galar ghosters
1x delaware ducks
1x red spect redemption
1x spikemuth spectral thieves
1x US east
1x US west
1x LATAM

what would need to happen to facilitate this? i don't think we even need to find artists incorporating these logos into designs, we could plap a star atop logos and be done with it tbh. lemme know what y'all think in the comments

 

[GenOne]

what would need to happen to facilitate this? i don't think we even need to find artists incorporating these logos into designs, we could plap a star atop logos and be done with it tbh. lemme know what y'all think in the comments

If this is something people want I could do the logo edits pretty easily. (A number of those team logos were designed by me anyways.)

 

[ryo yamada2001]

hiiii could we use the suspect test-type announcements for DLT too? e.g. when people join the game with someone with a DLT tag there's an announce at top that links to the tournament? i'd say DLT's biggest merit now is being able to get new people into the tier, this would hopefully snag us a few players

also is there a possibility of getting a DLT room?

 

[ryo yamada2001]

update because i don't think it's posted anywhere on the forums but we actually do have a DLT room now!! it keeps a leaderboard of all DLTIC accounts and posts whenever games (at 1500+ elo) are going on. thank you everyone involved for getting us the room!!

update update: we got this room and its the best shit ever

 

[ryo yamada2001]

Weigh DPL & Derby performances for Oldgens Invitational
The new oldgens circuit is great, I love that it resolves the visibility and opportunity issues oldgens suffered from, and having a guarantee that there'll be an invitationals this year is wonderful. However, the 2024 Oldgens invitational is currently structured as such that it only takes in account circuit performances, meaning that DPL and Derby are not accounted for.

While this is consistent with the regular circuit, we must acknowledge the different purposes of both circuits. The SV circuit manages to sustain itself by a set of major individual tournaments and awards a prize at the end, and as such is beholden to Smogon's ruleset. The Oldgens circuit instead intends to increase visibility and offer consistent opportunities to play legacy tiers, in an attempt to sustain or grow its playerbase, and as a non-official circuit does not need to hold itself to Smogon's rules as the official circuit means to achieve something different than this non-official one.

The Oldgens invitational should focus on inviting the year's best and most notable players instead of rewarding sheer activity. I understand the rationale that player activity is a huge part of a ribbon circuit invitationals, but it's a cynical approach to force people to commit to a circuit without a prize. It wouldn't even significantly increase activity anyway. People are always going to join the tournaments they're interested in, and they won't join the tournaments that they aren't interest in: a circuit without a prize won't motivate them to pick up a tier they don't care about. So the only thing not counting DPL & Derby performances does is exclude top players who perform highly in the most important oldgens tournaments in the year, for no major benefit whatsoever.

I don't believe this is exclusionary or necessarily unfair: exclusion is a problem when it comes to trophies and ribbon prizes, which is not the case for an oldgens circuit which should focus on development, growth, player retention, metagame developments, and celebrating its yearly best performers who are meaningfully committed to the tier enough that they care to represent it on what has been the highest stage(s) for oldgens DOU for a decade now. DPL (and Derby) will always remain the upper echelon of oldgens DOU.

As to give a more concrete example, me and Smudge accounted for DPL & Derby in our Oldgens invitational because it'd give a more accurate representation of our year's best. If we didn't take these tournaments into account, we'd have to snub eventual finalist Grandmas Cookin (8-0 in Derby, clearly the best ADV player) or Memoric (7-0 across two different tiers in DPL), which would've imo really called into question the legitimacy of our invitationals. You could say they should've played in more individual tournaments but I would not rather twist people's arms by making them commit to two hefty circuits at the same time throughout an entire year, when we were instead very happy to include the obvious number one of their respective tier (GMA) and also a highly committed and involved oldgens councilmember and notable poster (Memoric's oldgens techs do more for building his favored tiers than blindly playing them does)

I'm not suggesting to follow the exact methodology we used for the first Invitationals, because they were scuffed, but please at least acknowledge them and take them into account so we can have the best invitationals possible without asking players to take up a whole additional circuit on top of the already frankly immense workload DOU demands from its players. It's not conducive to growing the tiers in a healthy way, won't achieve the same things this sets out to do in SV circuit, and only discounts many of the most important oldgens games played in a year. Our initial oldgens invitational was already extremely good, a major net positive to the oldgens community, everybody who played in it seemed to be super positive about it, and there's no need to make such a massive change when there's no benefits to it

 

[bagel]

I would really like it if this suggestion was implemented in some way. Personally, I saw the original Oldgens Invitations as something that was "for the fans" so to speak. It was oldgens DOU fans wanting to watch some of the highest quality oldgens DOU gaming, and looking for a way to give great players a space to play high stakes competitive games. Team tours have always had some of the most competitive and high quality oldgens gaming and I think it would be an oversight to not take into account DPL and Derby performances in some way when looking to invite the best players.

 

[Actuarily]

Weigh DPL & Derby performances for Oldgens Invitational
The new oldgens circuit is great, I love that it resolves the visibility and opportunity issues oldgens suffered from, and having a guarantee that there'll be an invitationals this year is wonderful. However, the 2024 Oldgens invitational is currently structured as such that it only takes in account circuit performances, meaning that DPL and Derby are not accounted for.

While this is consistent with the regular circuit, we must acknowledge the different purposes of both circuits. The SV circuit manages to sustain itself by a set of major individual tournaments and awards a prize at the end, and as such is beholden to Smogon's ruleset. The Oldgens circuit instead intends to increase visibility and offer consistent opportunities to play legacy tiers, in an attempt to sustain or grow its playerbase, and as a non-official circuit does not need to hold itself to Smogon's rules as the official circuit means to achieve something different than this non-official one.

The Oldgens invitational should focus on inviting the year's best and most notable players instead of rewarding sheer activity. I understand the rationale that player activity is a huge part of a ribbon circuit invitationals, but it's a cynical approach to force people to commit to a circuit without a prize. It wouldn't even significantly increase activity anyway. People are always going to join the tournaments they're interested in, and they won't join the tournaments that they aren't interest in: a circuit without a prize won't motivate them to pick up a tier they don't care about. So the only thing not counting DPL & Derby performances does is exclude top players who perform highly in the most important oldgens tournaments in the year, for no major benefit whatsoever.

I don't believe this is exclusionary or necessarily unfair: exclusion is a problem when it comes to trophies and ribbon prizes, which is not the case for an oldgens circuit which should focus on development, growth, player retention, metagame developments, and celebrating its yearly best performers who are meaningfully committed to the tier enough that they care to represent it on what has been the highest stage(s) for oldgens DOU for a decade now. DPL (and Derby) will always remain the upper echelon of oldgens DOU.

As to give a more concrete example, me and Smudge accounted for DPL & Derby in our Oldgens invitational because it'd give a more accurate representation of our year's best. If we didn't take these tournaments into account, we'd have to snub eventual finalist Grandmas Cookin (8-0 in Derby, clearly the best ADV player) or Memoric (7-0 across two different tiers in DPL), which would've imo really called into question the legitimacy of our invitationals. You could say they should've played in more individual tournaments but I would not rather twist people's arms by making them commit to two hefty circuits at the same time throughout an entire year, when we were instead very happy to include the obvious number one of their respective tier (GMA) and also a highly committed and involved oldgens councilmember and notable poster (Memoric's oldgens techs do more for building his favored tiers than blindly playing them does)

I'm not suggesting to follow the exact methodology we used for the first Invitationals, because they were scuffed, but please at least acknowledge them and take them into account so we can have the best invitationals possible without asking players to take up a whole additional circuit on top of the already frankly immense workload DOU demands from its players. It's not conducive to growing the tiers in a healthy way, won't achieve the same things this sets out to do in SV circuit, and only discounts many of the most important oldgens games played in a year. Our initial oldgens invitational was already extremely good, a major net positive to the oldgens community, everybody who played in it seemed to be super positive about it, and there's no need to make such a massive change when there's no benefits to it

Circuits are designed to be as objective as possible, allowing everyone to participate and qualify based on their performance - even if they don’t have a specific Smogon prize. Allowing team tours to count as points wouldn’t be objective, as they’re extremely subjective, between who gets selected to be on the team, who starts, and who gets slotted into the Oldgens slots. Many players may want to participate in the Oldgens circuit, but may not be able to participate in these Oldgens slots on team tours (maybe they aren’t drafted, maybe they are backups, maybe they are slotted into other tiers), and it wouldn’t be fair to these other players that some people are able to earn circuit points towards something they weren’t able to. So I don’t think this would be fair to everyone, which circuits are supposed to be doing their best to be.

 

[Amaranth]

warning: the following is a certified trademark "amaranth proposes an exotic tournament format with potentially dubious merits" post

premise: dou oldgen circuit is unofficial. we are not Beholden to anything in particular and can run it however we think is best


proposal:

perhaps a good compromise between weighing top teamtour records and not messing with the 'fairness' of the circuit would be having a qualification system in the style of the chess Candidates tournament. I believe we can take the general idea and adapt it to our circuit to come up with something that doesn't overvalue team tournaments and keeps plenty of slots open to other people, but also doesn't ignore very obvious teamtour standouts.

for reference, the Candidates tournament qualifies some people based on placements at specific tournaments, and assigns other spots based on more generic 'consistent performance' metrics such as placing well in the 2023 Circuit, or having the highest overall elo out of anyone who hasn't qualified through other means.

you could easily apply something like that here. a rough proposal for how the 16 slots could be assigned:
x6 slots to the winners of the individual swisses
x2 slots to the winner and runner-up of classic
x2 slots to the winner and runner-up of vintage
x2 slots to the top two oldgen records in DPL
x2 slots to the top two oldgen records in Derby
x2 slots open to overall circuit ranking
for any player who qualifies through more than one metric (or for any player who qualifies but isn't interested in playing the top16), an additional player qualifies through overall circuit ranking instead


this gets rid of awkward arbitrary weighting decisions, and would overall imo do a better job selecting an elite field than basing it purely on circuit scores (which are often skewed to qualify people who have time to play lots of tournaments, rather than people who are very good at winning the tournaments they do join)

an alternative would be cutting the 6 slots for swiss winners and just chucking those back to overall circuit ranking - swiss winners will probably qualify anyway with basically any other positive result all year, and it keeps a more traditional circuit feeling. but I feel like the autoqualification is hype and would add some stakes to spice up these swisses, so I'm probably leaning for it

it feels like it could be a happy middle ground between the "not inviting someone who 7-0s derby is stupid" viewpoint (which is correct) and the "i want arbitrary qualification methods to be kept at a minimum" viewpoint (which is also fair)

"how do you seed people in top16" who cares, you don't. dou ribbon is about to be assigned with a match between seeds 6 and 12. seeding in circuits again tends to reward grinding more than anything else and seldom reflects actual quality of the players.
(this year: ru circuit was won by seed #8, ubers circuit had seeds 15 and 16 facing off in final and 16 won, oldgen ou circuits were won by seeds 10/3/3/8/2/8/6/13. there's a soft correlation but it doesn't seem all that important to me)

appendix

if you were to apply a similar concept to the 2023 DOU circuit, for demonstration's sake (top placements in individuals qualify, 4 peak teamtour records qualify, fill remainder with circuit point qualifiers as usual):

x2 wssnl top2 MADARAAAA, Akaru Kokuyo
x1 LT winner Yoda2798
x1 Classic winner JRL
x2 OSDT top2 Feyy, xqiht
x2 fssnl top2 Nido-Rus, SMB
x1 homefield winner Yoda2798
x2 SCL top records Xrn, qsns
x1 DPL top record JRL
x1 top record across DWC+Derb luisin
5 remaining slots awarded on circuit points to zee, Actuarily, entrocefalo, bage1, raf

this ends up the same as the top16 we ended up with in practice, with Xrn (9-1 SCL) and luisin (6-0 DWCoP) over Farfromani and Arcticblast. i think this would have made for a more interesting top16. all things considered i would not call this unfair to the two players who would have been cut out - they had a good year, but not a great year.

i think a system like this could work out great, especially for oldgens where teamtours are an even more important part of the competition. there are still very many options for complete unknowns or people without particular reputation in the tier (see entrocefalo) to qualify "fairly"

 

[Actuarily]

So the forum mod team has been talking about what changes we could make to the Oldgens circuit, and here’s a rough outline we’re proposing, and would like the community’s feedback on.

This structure would have guaranteed spots in the invitational for the following:

• Winner of each oldgen Swiss (so a max of 6 spots taken)
• Winner of each Classic & Vintage (max of 2 spots taken)
• 2 (?) of the best records in oldgen tiers in each DPL and Derby (max of 4 spots taken) (ties being decided by a best-of-5, similar to how the tour is played).
• The remaining spots filled by whoever has the most circuit points that doesn’t automatically qualify. (So a minimum of 4).
• The tournament would still be seeded based on circuit points.

What I mean by max & minimum is that there may be users who meet the criteria to auto-qualify multiple times, and thus free up more spots for users to qualify via the circuit.

Other than the above outline (of which all of it is up for discussion), there’s also some key discussion points we’d like to hear feedback on:

1. How do we determine best Oldgens record?
Some options are winning percentage, most wins in the regular season, most wins overall, etc.
Winning percentage can be flawed at such small samples, for instance if someone takes one week off but goes 5-1 (83.3%) did they really do better than someone who played all through finals and went 7-2 (77.8%)?
Most wins would balance this, but is it fair that someone who’s team doesn’t make the playoffs gets punished, or should we reward winning in the postseason/tiebreakers, even if it means a worse overall record?

2. Should the championship remain at 16 players? Or should it be expanded to 24 or 32?
Expansion could offer much more meaning to seeds, like a 1 vs 32 would theoretically be a much more lopsided matchup, while still allowing much more players to participate. 24 could offer byes to the top 8 seeds.
If expanded, the number of auto-qualifications could also be expanded.

3. Should DPL & Derby have the same number of auto-qualification spots?
As Derby theoretically would only have half of the number of Oldgens slots (gens 3 & 4) compared to DPL (5-8), does it make sense to have the same number of auto-qualification slots?

Let us know your thoughts!

 

[zee]

for team tours, you could assign a points system like the following:

+3 points per win, -1 point per regular season week skipped/not played an oldgen in, -2 points for loss

(EDIT: to clarify, i just mean to use these points as a ranking system to sort the players, not to necessarily award circuit points related to these finishes, though theoretically that could be an option)

someone that goes 5-2 would be at 11 points, whereas someone that goes 5-0 would be at 13, but going 4-0 would only put you at 9. I think you should be rewarded for playing some sort of oldgen each week during the tour, and this rewards both high finishes and people taking just a few Ls but still placing near the top. I'm not sure where to factor in playoff wins, we could reward them more, reward them less since only half the field will play a playoff game, or keep the values the same, probably just the latter option

i think 16 is a fair amount of competitors. doubles has a seriously competitive oldgens community but it is still rather small, expanding beyond that feels like it would be letting too many people in, especially when auto-qualifier slots are there for people who only want to focus on going deep in a few tours

i think it makes sense for derby to have half of whatever dpl has in terms of auto-qualifiers.